Blacklock - Wlk(26),BG(4)
Description The Blacklock is a more battle oriented warlock. He wears heavier armor, and instead of firing his eldritch blasts through the air, channels them through his weapon. Trading eldritch power for more battle prowess, the blacklock is tougher and more capable in a frontline battle than his warlock cousin, but is still capable of ranged attacks when necessary. NOTE: The Blacklock basically requires the Warlock Buddy mod available on the Vault. This will make the Hideous Blow invocation actually function as it should, rather than its horrible NWN2 implementation. Without the Warlock Buddy, your damage will literally be halved, because you'll have to cast Hideous Blow every other turn. Character Creation *All totals are represented with no magical equipment. A mithral full plate (8) and mithral heavy shield (2) have been added to the AC, and Dark One's Own Luck, Leaps and Bounds, and Flee the Scene are in effect. However, you can use almost any item due to your extremely high UMD score (43), so you'll likely have access to items which will boost these totals far beyond what you'd have without equipment. Also, the +6 bonus from a Spellcraft of 30 has not been included because it only applies versus spells, but note that it is in effect. Notes: The following are strengths and weaknesses as compared to a normal level 30 warlock. Strengths: *Weapon damage is added, and because of (epic) divine might, you can use both strength and charisma to increase damage even more. *Better AC and saving throws. *Decent AB and five attacks per round. If even one hits, Hideous Blow will activate. *Aura of Despair makes it harder for enemies to save against any essence you apply to your Hideous Blow. *Still capable of decently powerful eldritch blasts if ranged damage is needed. Weaknesses: *Much lower Eldritch Blast damage when you consider that a pure warlock would take more uses of Epic Eldritch Blast. *Lowered elemental resistances. *Touch attacks are easier to land than melee strikes. *Ability scores are more split. ***This is a note from someone other than the creator of the build with a slight modification I believe adds to the class: you can choose instead of 4 levels in blackguard to go 1 in cleric and 2 in blackguard. The main drawback includes multiclass experience penalty, while the 2 lost levels in blackguard is mainly hp and a little bab, the extra spells from blackguard being negligible at best. In return you gain 2 cleric domain perks of your choice and access to level 1 spells(divine favor, bless, protection from alignments notable choices). Notable domains include chaos for slippery mind, darkness for blind fight(opens up your lvl 18 feat for something else), war for free weapon focus in your diety's favored weapon(saves another feat in build). luck for luck of heroes (unique lvl 1 exclusive), earth for toughness, water for evasion. Common cleric splash domains tend to be earth and water for their universal benefits, my preference is chaos and earth and to take improved ring of evasion when you get it, and yuan ti for free blind fight. You also have the option of choosing 3 levels in hellfire warlock which reduces your warlock total to 24, you trade out 1d6 eldritch blast from passive, 1d6 epic eldritch blast from lvl26 epic base class bonus feat, and 1dr/cold iron from lvl27 warlock. In exchange you get full lvl 3 hellfire warlock bonuses, the main draw being 6d6 hellfire blast for more maximum damage, 10dr/fire, and hellfire shield for eldritch damage aura each round. The constitution damage can be immune using ability drain equipment or buffs. Regardless either build can easily be considered superior to 4 points in blackguard. Just make sure that your points in cleric and blackguard are on feat levels so you can pick up both divine might and divine shield. Also be sure that you have at least 16 levels in warlock by the time you reach 21 so you don't miss taking eldritch master as early as possible. Character Progression ***The first level feat is your choice, but I suggest you pick a background feat because they are more powerful than other non-epic feats. Because you already have infinite spells per day, Spellcasting Prodigy will only increase the DCs of whatever essences you attach to Hideous Blow by 1 (basically like a Spell Focus feat for a warlock). It's not necessary, but can still make difference against some enemies. I personally prefer Spellcasting Prodigy to all the other background feats for this build, but you can pick whatever you want. ***At warlock level 10, you choose two types of energy to resist. Fire and Cold are probably the ones you'll most often be hit with, and so are the best choices, but feel free to pick whatever you feel like. ***You could also pick any other weapon that can be both one and two-hand wielded. A longsword and mithral heavy shield will have great AC, and you can still drop the shield at any time to two-hand the longsword for 1.5x STR damage. As long as the weapon you choose can do this, it's a good enough choice because your base weapon damage doesn't really matter much when you're adding in charisma and hideous blow anyway. ***Increasing Spellcraft and Tumble beyond this point would have no effect, so you'll start having skill points with no purpose. Spend them as you please. Invocations This a list of recommended invocations. Asterisks denote required or very useful invocations (for the build at least). Least: *Dark One's Own Luck* *Hideous Blow* *See the Unseen Lesser: *Eldritch Chain* *Flee the Scene* *Walk Unseen Greater: *Noxious Blast* (Great for using on Hideous Blow) *Vitriolic Blast* *Chilling Tentacles *Devour Magic Dark: *Dark Foresight* *Eldritch Doom *Retributive Invisibility *Utterdark Blast Other Possible Races Aasimar This will drop the level adjustment down to only +1. In place of spell resistance, you do at least get three damage resistances, which work well with the warlock levels giving you resistances to the other two energy types. You don't get free weapon proficiencies, so spear will be the best weapon you can use until your blackguard levels, or morningstar if you can craft a mithral heavy shield before then. Wood Elf: This drops you down so you have no level adjustment. Start with 18 strength and 16 charisma. Plan accordingly and you can still get Epic Divine Might at level 26. You'll still have free weapon proficiencies, as well. You do lose spell resistance and your total ability scores will be lower, but this will overall play quite similarly to the drow. Human: This is another viable option, gaining a few things but losing a few when compared to the other mentioned races. You gain one extra feat and can take only 14 (+2 modifier) Intelligence at creation because of the bonus skill points, leaving you with a net loss of 2 Charisma compared to the Drow starting stats without having to pay for having an increased ECL. The two main downfalls are loss of damage/spell resistance and having only simple weapon proficiencies until level 10 (1st Blackguard level). Ideally, a Wood Elf would be better for the sake of avoiding ECL penalties all together, but if you need the extra feat Weapon Focus (Ranged Touch Attack), Power Critical, Improved Critical, and crafting feats come to mind and/or simply like the look of humans better than Elves, then humans are definitely not a bad choice. Category:Character builds Category:Melee Character builds Category:Power Builds Category:Arcane Spell Swords category:Divine Character builds